Red
Red. Simply a color. And yet it has the ability to mean so much. It is a symbol of many things. Red is love. Red is passion. Red is danger. Red is anger. The color red may seem unimportant to any ordinary person if asked about it.
"What is red? Why, it's a color." That is something everyone could answer. Even a child could tell you that, and would even go on to spell it for you just to show you how smart they are.
Red. A color. But is it really just a color? Oh no, it can be so much more.
Red is what caught my attention when I first met you, Mattie. Before you came into my life my world was colorless. I was stuck in the black and white of a dull and meaningless life, even as a kid. I was an orphan, angry at the world and at myself. And then in walked this red beacon. You showed me so much. You became my best friend. My world was now filled with something. It had colors.
But out of all of these new and bright colors that you had painted my world with, the ones I remember most of all were the reds. Oh the reds. They were splattered carelessly across every memory I had with you.
Like the pale shade of red that covered your cheeks when you got embarrassed. I know this because it was often me that put it there. I teased you, making comments that, as a kid, were to hurt you at first because that was what bratty little kids did. And I know you agree when I say I was definitely a bratty kid. But then we got older. I made you blush because I hugged you once when you comforted me after I got 2nd… again, and it was a different kind of red. A beautiful innocent red. From then on I wanted to keep making you blush again and again. I flirted with you, teased you, and brushed my hand against yours – anything to get your cheeks to heat up with that brilliant red. You would avoid looking into my eyes from your embarrassment, but that was fine by me. I still got to see the blush rush across your face.
And the color of your hair that slipped through my pale fingers as we lay together at night. It was so very red until the morning's sunlight hit it through the paneled window above our bed, shining down and creating the orange to appear upon your head. You told me that it calmed you when I messed with your hair. I never told you that it calmed me as well, just knowing that your head was near mine. Touching the red locks brought a peace to me that nothing else could. You were what tamed my anger.
Or the bright red light of a glow of embers on the end of a cigarette that could almost always be found between your lips. The glow was dull at first, until you gave it life with a drag while slowly losing your own. I told you that those death sticks would give you cancer, and that they would be the end of you. You laughed and told me that you wouldn't live long enough to see that happen. Our lives were far too dangerous for you to have to worry about something like cancer. I guess that was my fault. I'm sorry we lived a life like that.
Also, your lips. Not quite a red, but they were close after I had tasted them. And damn closer after they had been crushed to my own in heated and passionate kisses. Lips bruised in the process but always left with the feeling of satisfaction. Sore and darkened.
And the dark red and purple of the marks that were left on your skin. Marks made by me that I had scattered around your neck and chest, along your stomach and back. They stood out on your pale body, which only made me want to make more. They looked like a piece of art. The marks that you loved to get because it was a reminder of me. And I loved to see them because they were a reminder of our times together. It was my signature, claiming you as mine with a big red mark that just screamed "Lay off I'm taken!" You often said those words in a tone that was supposed to be mine, acting the part of a jealous and possessive boyfriend. Which I was, but somehow you didn't mind.
Or perhaps the color I will remember the most is the dark, red, almost black, liquid that stained your skin as well as my own two hands… The color of your blood as it poured through the bullet wounds that marred your chest and seeped past my fingers. Fingers that were pressed against your torso as they so desperately tried to stop it from bleeding. I so desperately tried to save you, Mattie.
And as the red left your body, the color that you had once brought into my world left with it. I was stuck in black and white once again.